Keeling Curve Prize Staff

Jackie is the both the creator and the Director of the Keeling Curve Prize. While getting a masters degree in Energy Policy and Climate Science from John Hopkins University, she became concerned with the slow pace of the climate movement and the lack of progress towards global emission reductions. She decided that more needed to be done to accelerate the shift to a climate stable future and she used her expertise, connections and background to start the prize. Prior to the KCP, Jackie ran a pilot program for the Smithsonian Science Education Center about emergent scientific learning under the mentorship of world renowned physicist, David Pines. She spent 4 years as the Executive Director of the Aspen Science Center - working closely with the Aspen Center for Physics, coordinated a program for the U.S. Department of Energy under Steven Chu, and has been instrumental in spurring action surrounding energy solutions for decades.

Jacquelyn Francis, Director/Founder

Though a native of Boulder, Colorado, Paula has also lived in Mexico City, Paris, the Bay Area, and more briefly, North West Africa. She is a painter, poet, and doula, and loves to be where critical, creative thinking and the natural world meet. She is particularly inspired by the magnificent projects and spirit of collaboration that come through, and are as a result of, the Keeling Curve Prize.

Paula Creevy, Executive Assistant

Denise is the Project Assistant for the Keeling Curve Prize and Executive Assistant for the Smithsonian Science Education Center's pilot program, ATLAS Aspen. She is also an English Composition Professor at Colorado Mountain College for developmental and college level writing courses. Her BA in Geology and MA in Composition give her a unique background for academically encouraging both the sciences and literary arts. Denise is constantly working to encourage her students to analytically think and demand evidence for their research.

Denise Barkhurst, Project Assistant

The Analyst Team is responsible for evaluating incoming applications for credibility and adherence to our Keeling Curve Prize performance metric and organizational goals. They then deliver their selections to the Advisory Council and Judging Panel. The winners are chosen from this pool.

The Senior Analysts are instrumental in the transparency and integrity of the Keeling Curve Prize. They develop the application and evaluation processes, and offer feedback on the goals of the prize, in-house procedures, and future plans.

S. Karthik Mukkavilli is a computational scientist whose research focuses on solar energy forecasting and atmospheric dust aerosols. Karthik’s multidisciplinaryresearch methods include radiative transfer physics, satellite remote sensing and data assimilation. His PhD research is affiliated with the University of New South Wales’ (UNSW) School of Photovoltaics and Renewable Energy Engineering and the Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in their Earth assessment and complex systems unit. Here he serves as an Office of Chief Executive Scholar with research collaborators including NASA, NREL and NCAR. He was awarded a European Space Agency innovation contract with Rutherford Appleton Labs, Oxford for co-founding a satellite observations and computer vision tech start up. He serves on the technical advisory board of the World Energy & MeteorologyCouncil, the American Meteorological Society Committee on Artificial Intelligence Applications to Environmental Science, is a research co-author on the NY Times bestseller book on climate change, Drawdown, and was a visiting and affiliate research scientist at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, investigating dust storms on Mars. Karthik is now an Entrepreneur in Residence candidate with a consumer technology and AI- focused venture capital and investment firm.

S. Karthik Mukkavilli, senior analyst

Ruth has a Master of Forestry and MBA from Yale University, and a degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University. In addition to working with the Azuero Earth Project, she has been a part of The Forests Dialogue, the International Society of Tropical Foresters, and the Governance, Environment and Markets Initiative at Yale. Ruth has written about sustainable agriculture and forest dynamics in Latin America in publications such as“Manejo de Nutrientes y Seguridad Alimentaria en Huertos Caseros Mesoamericanos” (2015)and “Farm to Forest: Factors Associated with Protecting and Planting Trees in a PanamanianAgricultural Landscape” (2015). Her field experience includes research projects with the Smithsonian in Panama, along with work in Costa Rica, Cuba, Honduras, Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, Peru, Venezuela, and the United States.

Ruth Metzel, senior analyst

Aven is a PhD student at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute. His research aims to improve our understanding of energy consumption in US and UK households, focusing on how deeper insight into complex human-energy dynamics can inform energy policy and strategy for accelerating the low-carbon transition. Prior to starting his PhD, Aven received a Master’s degree in Environmental Change and Management from the University of Oxford. He was a research fellow and contributor to the New York Times bestseller Drawdown, published in 2017. Before enrolling at Oxford, he worked in both private and public-sector roles, first for a start-up that is now the top loan provider for residential solar installations in the US and then for the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change. He grew up in the US state of Montana and received a BS in environmentaland political science from Santa Clara University.